Research and Planning: Film trailer analysis

 

The Blair Witch Project

Audience
When the Blair With Project came out in the cinema's, It was marketed as a real life situation, and a true story so when the marketing started, everybody wanted to watch it to see the disaster.
I'd say the audience for this film are mostly young people as they are the people who feature in the film. The film is a 15, so obviously the audience starts there and goes up. Id say 15 year olds up to 30 year olds would be the target audience for this film.
As both genders star in the film, I'd say both genders would be interested in going to see it. Males are probably more likely to go to see it, because of the film being scary and stereotypically, males are more likely to see a horror whereas girls are more likely to see rom-coms.
As the film is going to be a horror/fantasy, the audience are likely to be interested in them kinds of films.
Representation
In the trailer there are males and females who are students, you can tell they're students with how they are represented at the start of the trailer. They are all laughing and joking, like usual students, and the whole idea of them doing a school project is obviously relating to their age.
This film is a horror but i suppose can also be seen as a thriller film due to the 'hunt' as described in the trailer.
The representation of the males compared to the females in the film is stereotypical, as in the trailer the boy is shouting at the girl for loosing the map. This shows the side to the male that shows men always are right and girls are inferior to them.
Narritive
The story, like our film trailer, is about people who go camping in the woods, unlike our trailer, the Blair Witch Project is from the perspective of the students, where as ours will be onlooking we think at the moment. There is a 'bad guy' in the Blair Witch Project who 'hunt' down the campers.
In the trailer there are lots of dark shots where they are running, this suggests that most of the film is set at night, this makes the film seem more scary already. There are also hints that the Blair Witch is just a suspicion due to the interviews at the start of the trailer.
In the trailer in some dialogue between the characters, there is talk of a lost map, this hints that they're going to get lost, causing disorientation.
In the trailer there is a close up of a girl recording herself talking alone, this gives clues to what has happened already in the film, and shows that they're one by one being hunted.
The structure to this trailer is all over the place in the sense that the trailer doesn't actually give much away. The whole thing is filmed by the characters, which makes the whole trailer more scary because it creates the illusion of them being very alone, due to there being no crew behind the scenes.
Genre
The genre to this film is mainly horror, I can tell this because of the narrative to the story, and the lighting and sound. The lighting is very dark and there are a lot of screams.
Mise-en-scene
In the very first shot of the girl in her home, everything is very normal looking, to create the realism. This adds to the illusion of the whole film being real.
Everything in the woods is very minimal to show that they're only there temporarily and plan on returning home.
Until the scene with the voodoo type prop in the tree's, the whole trailer is very minimalistic when it comes to the mise-en-scene. The voodoo doll in the tree's shows that they're not alone and that is the first solid piece of evidence in the trailer that shows this. In this part of the film, I think they realize they aren't alone, which makes it quite scary.
There is a close up one one of the characters where she is wearing a hat, this suggests that is cold in the woods where they are. She also has runny eyes and nose, showing that they're not in home comforts.